Fair Opportunity in Education: A Democratic Equality Perspective

Anderson talks about fair opportunity in education. She asserts that recent work on justice in the distribution of educational opportunities has focused on two phenomena. The first is the shift in the United States from an "equality" to an "adequacy" standard of fair educational opportunity. Instead of making the state provide equal educational inputs to rich and poor children, advocates for the disadvantaged, courts, and policy makers have been trying to make the state educate all students to at least an adequate threshold of achievement. The second is the fact that education is not just an intrinsic good for the individual but an important instrumental good with positional features. It opens up access to the most rewarding careers and leadership positions in society in virtue of endowing individuals with relatively superior qualifications.